The Together Programme and PACE.
Over twenty years ago, Dr Dan Hughes developed the PACE approach as a central part of attachment-focused family therapy. PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy, and supports adults to build safe, trusting and meaningful relationships with children and young people who have experienced trauma.
The PACE model is used by foster carers, kinship carers and adoptive parents around the world and is seen to be one of the most therapeutic approaches to caring for children. The Together programme, developed by stormbreak, compliments PACE and throughout the Together sessions we demonstrate how we use playfulness to create a platform for mental health discussions.
Children in foster care have experienced trauma, loss and uncertainty, impacting on their self worth, resilience and stability. They may feel abandoned, both physically and emotionally, and whilst they are told their new carers are ‘safe,’ it can be difficult to trust those adults around them. Placement stability for children is essential and foster carers need ongoing support and training to enable them to continue caring for their child despite the most complex of needs.
The NSPCC 2024 Statistics Briefing: Children in Care report states that 5-10% of all children in foster care in 2023 had three or more placements in that year. It seems incomprehensible that young children may move home three or more times to live in an unfamiliar house, with strangers in just one year. We are expecting these children to ‘settle’ into their new home, continue attending school and adjust to their new routine, all whilst remaining emotionally regulated.
The Together programme works specifically with foster/kinship/adoptive carers and over a 12 week course, explores the five mental health concepts and how these may ‘look’ from a child’s perspective. A child who has had adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is likely to struggle to feel hope and optimism, their sense of self worth may be very small and as a result may lack self care. It is essential therefore that adults supporting children demonstrate acceptance when a child dysregulates and empathy when they feel unsafe or uncertain. PACE and the Together programme work alongside one another, allowing carers to be curious with their children and to enable playfulness underpinned by mental health concepts and theory.
Research has shown that ‘care-experienced young people prefer to seek support from informal sources’¹, and that ‘having a consistent trusted adult is key’² in this support being successful, making the foster carer ideally placed to support the emotional wellbeing of the children in their care.
The ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love: Strategy and Consultation’ 2023 publication, commits to improving children’s social care and includes a mission to make sure adults working with children in care know how to support them with their physical and mental health needs. They commit to providing more training in order to achieve this. The stormbreak Together programme supports the ambition of the strategy and hopes to be able to reach as many trusted adults as possible to ensure stormbreak is embedded in foster carer’s approach to caring for these very special children.
Emma Dowinton
Social Worker
¹ Source: Mental health help seeking in young people and carers in out of home care: A systematic review, Powell et al., 2021
² Source: Selwyn, J. & Briheim-Crookall, L. (2022) 10,000 Voices: The views of children in care on their well-being, Coram Voice and the Rees Centre, University of Oxford